‘Once Upon a Time’ Cast Previews Tension Amid Its Charming Family Reunion

So Emma (Jennifer Morrison) and Mary Margaret (Ginnifer Goodwin) finally made it back to Storybrooke on the winter finale of ABC’s Once Upon A Time. But, if you thought their family could just live happily ever after, well, you haven’t been watching this show too closely!

“There’s immediately new problems. It’s not like Emma gets a break! We have a party at Granny’s and then there’s a whole set of new of problems,” Morrison laughed when Celebuzz visited the Vancouver set of Once Upon A Time last fall.

An example of one such problem? Who is in charge of Storybrooke, now that Regina (Lana Parrilla) has earned a little trust, David (Josh Dallas) awakens from his sleep curse, and Emma gets her shield back?

“As much as Regina has been a negative force, she also is central to everything initially, so now that we’ve sort of lost the mayor, who was keeping the town sort of centrally together, everyone’s looking to David because he was the Prince in the other kingdom,” Morrison continued.

“Emma [comes] back and is still Sheriff technically, but then David was Sheriff… Regina has a great line at one point where she’s like ‘I’m glad this is a family affair!’ A Sheriff family!”

Though the Charming family may be reunited physically, they have to settle in with each other for the first real time since truly meeting each other. Emma and her mother had time to bond in heightened circumstances in fairytale land, and now it’s David and Emma’s turn — as well as David and Mary Margaret’s chance to get reacquainted.

“[David’s] more laid-back and wants to find out who [Emma] is as a woman and who she is as a friend first,” Dallas said of his parenting style. “I think that’s more his kind of tactic, whereas Mary Margaret was straight in there from the beginning trying to mother her, and he’s like ‘Hold on, give her time, give her time.’ I think he’s more interested in doing that and finding a deeper friendship before any of that other stuff starts. You’ll see them forming that kind of relationship, doing a little duel Sheriff-ing and some interrogation and kind of working together in that way. They both have different ideas about how to bring justice to different people, and I think they both learn from each other, too, because they’re very similar.”

There is a minor complication of David not necessarily wanting to stay in Storybrooke at all. Sure, the women in his life explain to him that the land he remembers as a magical, beautiful place is actually not that anymore, but he feels a sense of duty to restore it.

“David wants to get back to their kingdom — the kingdom that they fought for; the kingdom that they love; the kingdom that is their home. And Mary Margaret maybe might think a bit differently. As she tells him, ‘Fairytale Land is not as you remember it,’ and the way he feels is then all the more reason to return there and make it right and make it better — make it better than it was,” Dallas said.

“They also need to reconnect, you know, reconnect as a couple and not find their love again but explore it again and get in with each other, but they never have time. There’s always something going on; something always needs to be fixed or someone needs to be saved or there are other dimensions.”

But of course, Cora (Barbara Hershey) and Hook (Colin O’Donoghue) making their way to Storybrooke — a story that will play out immediately upon the show’s January 2013 return — introduces new challenges of its own, maybe even for those characters who seem to know themselves the best.

“Snow has never inflicted a fatal wound on anyone — even in battle scenes [like] Snow versus the Black Night, she knocks everyone out. And so I think it’s a matter of… her feeling that she is keeping her resume clean, if that makes sense. She can’t feel self-righteous if she errs; there’s a sense of entitlement there; she has to have a perfect record,” Goodwin said.

Once Upon A Time returns Sunday at 8PM on ABC.

Do you think good will truly always defeat evil in Storybrooke? Let us know how you think the Charming family can stick together and take down their enemies in the comments below!